Fallout: Equestria - War Does Change
Fallout: Equestria - War Does Change is a Fallout: Equestria side story written by tom117z. It is told from a first-person perspective and follows an everyday wasteland scavenger by the name of Scrap Heap. If you wish to read the story, you will find it on Fimfiction.Net. Synopsis It has been nearly two hundred years since the megaspells rained fire down on the world, reducing it to a tainted wasteland. The ponies of Equestria get on by, but only just. A lucky few survived in great underground shelters, the stables. Among these is the lost, and almost mythical, Stable 84. It was said that the stable in question was home to not ponies, but creatures who could change their faces with but a thought. But that was just a myth, there was no way that the Equestrian Hive was real. Right? Setting The story begins shortly before Littlepip was due to leave Stable 2, one day specifically before Ditzy Doo was captured by raiders in Ponyville. The story begins in New Appleoosa, where Scrap Heap receives a PipBuck with the location of an undiscovered Stable in the far north. The Pipbuck in question had the name of its original owner still on the status screen: Chrysalis. Plot The story opens with Scrap Heap entering New Appeloosa, where our protagonist is going to see Ditzy Doo and sell her a haul of scrap he has collected. He reaches Absolutely Everything and gets his caps, as he usually does, at which point he is ready to leave. However, Ditzy then surprises him with a PipBuck and a job to investigate a Stable up north: Stable 84. But as he equips the Pipbuck, she also informs him that he'll need a code from somepony named Cobalt from Tenpony Tower, to which Scrap Heap then departs for. He also finds a name on the Pipbuck, erasing it for his own. That name is Chrysalis, who unknown to him is the name of the Queen of the Changelings. After leaving New Appleoosa, Scrap Heap begins his journey up to Manehatten. The journey will have him pass by Ponyville, which is known raider territory. During the trip he stops at an old Red Rocket Wagon Stop, where he is attacked by some raiders. He kills three of them before the rest are set to overpower him, but he is saved by the intervention of Calamity. Losing his wagon in the fight, Scrap Heap briefly converses with the pegasus before continuing on his way. After sneaking past Ponyville, and seeing Fluttershy's cottage, Scrap Heap encounters a scavenger family fighting a Mr Gutsy robot. He helps them destroy it, though one of the family is killed in the process. They agree to travel together until they reach Manehatten. They part ways after arriving in the city, with the scavenger family heading over to Friendship City. It is soon after this that Scrap Heap runs into a group of raiders battling some Zebra Remnant who are strangely a long way from Hoofington. The zebras are hostile to Scrap Heap, and with the help of a mysterious sniper he kills both groups with great difficulty. The sniper turns out to be a zebra mare who goes by the alias of 'Stripe', and she joins Scrap Heap on his journey. When Scarp Heap and Stripe reach Tenpony Tower, helping repel some raiders in the process, they meet up with Cobalt who is revealed to be a member of the Twilight Society. The Society want some secret thing Stable 84 was involved with, though Cobalt refuses to divulge any more information than the fact that Chrysalis was of great important to the MAS. He also refuses to give over the password, forcing Scrap Heap and Stripe to take him along to the Stable in person. While heading to the Stable, they take a shortcut through some mountains. This leads them to discover a village of ponies with the exact same cutie mark. The village is led by a ghoul know as The Prophet, who allows them to stay for the night. It quickly becomes apparent, however, that The Prophet it controlling the populace through the fake cutie marks she has placed onto them from birth. When The Prophet attempts to do the same to Scrap Heap, Cobalt, and Stripe she was revealed to be a mare named Starlight Glimmer, and the group resisted her attempt. In the ensuing gunfight, Our Town was destroyed while Scrap Heap was rendered unconscious by an explosion. Starlight's status was left unknown. After waking, Scrap Heap looks into a memory orb provided by Cobalt showing him exactly what is waiting in Stable 84. Changelings. They then make it to the pre-war town of Haven, where they are attacked by a large horde of feral ghouls and forced to take shelter in an old Donut Joe's. The diner turns out to be a cover for a secret MAS facility, where a group of Red Eye's Talons appear and drive the group away from the town before they can investigate further. After making it out of Haven, they take the time and rest. Scrap Heap uses this time to look into the memory orb he found at the secret MAS facility, which shows a memory of Chrysalis shortly after the Littlehorn Massacre. Her hive was dying, their the new technology and tactics of Equestria was making infiltration nearly impossible without understanding said technology and tactics. As such, Chrysalis decided to make an alliance with Equestria for the sake of her hive and an unseen individual named Insidiis. The group finally make it to the location of the hive and Stable 84, finding a small group of long dead Steel Rangers at the entrance to the cave. Before they can investigate further, however, The Prophet catches up to the group and attacks them. After a tough fight, Starlight manages to overpower the group and begins to take their cutie marks, ranting about Our Town and a stallion named Sunburst, the ghoul clearly on the verge of going feral. But while she's distracted, a huge radscorpion emerges from the cave and impales Starlight through the skull with its stinger, killing her instantly. The group are then forced to battle the scorpion, emerging victorious at the cost of Stripe being injured and poisoned by the creature. With Stripe poisoned, the group carry her into the hive with the goal of locating Stable 84 and the infirmary, hoping to get the zebra an antidote. They find some changeling feral ghouls inside, the hive being full of radiation. They do make it to the hive, however, but are caught at a security checkpoint and are gassed into unconsciousness. When they waken, Stripe is nowhere to be seen, while Scrap Heap and Cobalt and trapped in a cell inside the stable. Scrap delves into a memory orb he picked up from the hive, seeing a changeling infiltrator assassinate a zebra target. When he came out of the orb he met the Overmare, Princess Insidiis of the Equestria Hive. She questioned Scrap Heap about the state of Equestria, and explains the hive's situation to the unicorn. She asks for his help in retrieving a water talisman from another nearby stable, and he agrees. Insidiis then takes Scrap Heap to the stable's infirmity, where Stripe is recovering from her injuries. The two have a heartfelt reunion, and Insidiis slyly notes that the two seem to be developing feelings for one another. The Princess also has one of her drones, Altrix, accompany the group as their medic. As soon as they leave the hive, they have an encounter with The Watcher. Watcher has been following the group for a while, and is curious as to their motives helping the changelings, Watcher having known about Stable 84 and its contents. After seeing their motives appeared to be benevolent, he sent them to the town of Prosperity with the goal of finding something at the local Megamart. On arrival, the group found a gang of raiders there, and they were holding prisoners. They acted quickly, sneaking into the Megamart and ambushing the raiders inside, eventually eliminating them and freeing the prisoners. After that, the group would come across the site of Stable 77. It is located within the Galloping Gorge, and they had to get past several giant mutated eels to get there, having the catwalk down destroyed in the process by the giant creatures. Things don't get better inside Stable 77, as they discover that it was only ever occupied by a single dweller who was driven insane by the experiment there. Worse, the dweller was still alive and would have killed the entire group had a pegasus they'd met back at the Megamart, Moon Blossom, not arrived and saved them. She and Scrap Heap then confronted the ghoulified dweller, and after a fight managed to put him out of his near-feral misery. After Moon Blossom officially joins the group, they retrieve the water talisman and depart from the stable. On the return trip, they are ambushed by Red Eye's slavers, the same ones they encountered earlier. Their leader, Kronos, demands they five them Altrix in return for their lives. They refuse, and conduct a fighting retreat during which Scrap Heap was briefly captured. Following this incident, he and Stripe had their first kiss. On the return trip to Stable 84, the group investigate a memory orb they recovered from a slaver. Inside they see a memory of Chrysalis and Twilight Sparkle, and the former coercing the latter to experiment with modifying the alicorn potion to work with changelings. The group realise that, while the modified potion was never finished, if Red Eye and the Goddess succeed in completing that research then the latter will get a whole hive of changelings into Unity. They were now on a race against the clock to save not just Stable 84, but Equestria itself. They quickly returned to Stable 84, and managed to warn Princess Insidiis of the impending threat. As a result, the group are next asked to locate the MAS facility where the modified potion is being produced and destroy it, preventing the Goddess from getting changelings into Unity's ranks. They elect to remain at the stable a couple days to recuperate, however, and Scrap Heap and Stripe finally admit their feelings and enter an official relationship. Stripe also reveals to him, and only him, her true name: Xena. Afterwards, the group leave for the town of Buckingham where Red Eye's forces have set up a camp, intent on finding out where the MAS facility is. On arrival, they see an alicorn is present among the slavers, so elect to try sneaking in by stealing some combat armour from Red Eye's troops. The plan works, but they only make it so far as the factory's entrance before pre-war security detects that Altrix is a disguised changelings, alerting the slavers to their presence. A firefight breaks out, the group retreating to and taking shelter in the security centre. Here they discover that the MAS facility they need is behind the door they'd previously found in Haven, and that a changeling scouting party were killed and sent there for testing. Cobalt then activates the factory's security robots to help combat the slavers, and they use them to cut a path to the alicorn. They briefly speak to both the drone and the Goddess, who let slip that they and Red Eye/Kronos have a conflict of interest as to the changelings, before they combat and kill the lone green alicorn. Afterwards, they spread out to try and locate a code for the MAS bunker, where Scrap Heap locates a memory orb showing the birth of the pony-changeling alliance. Watcher then shows up, inquiring about Kronos' plans. He informs them that the most likely spot for them to locate the code for the bunker will be in Twilight Sparkle's office at the Vanhoover MAS Hub. Using a Sky Bandit the slavers had previously used, the group head off for the city. On arriving in the city, they are almost shot down during a shooting match between the Steel Rangers and the Zebra Remnant. Xena fears that the latter are still after her. After they head further into the city, encountering a few raiders along the way, they make it to a town called Crossroads. They elect to stay for the night, while they also introduce themselves to the local Sheriff to ask him questions about the MAS hub. During the night the town is attacked by the Zebra Remnant, who inadvertently reveals that Xena's brother, Xaro, is the one behind it. Scrap Heap and Xena head off to confront him, leaving the others reluctantly behind in Crossroads. The duo made their way to the Remnant's camp, Xena discussing her brother in more detail as they went. On arrival, they found the camp heavily defended but came up with a plan to take it out. The next morning, Xena surrenders herself to the Remnant while Scrap Heap secretly follows on under the cover of a StealthBuck. While she is confronting her brother, Scrap steals a bunch of plastic explosives from the Remnant and begins setting them up around the camp, rigged to a detonator on his PipBuck. Xaro reveals to Xena that he had their parents executed when they too saw the corruption of the Remnant and tried to flee, which gained him considerable favour with the Legate. This enrages Xena, which Scrap Heap sees as his cue to reveal himself. The explosions destroyed the camp and kill most of the zebras in one fell swoop, the rest either falling in the ensuing gunfight or to a horde of feral ghouls that were attracted by the explosions. Xaro himself put up more of a fight, breaking Scrap Heap's leg and injuring both him and Xena. But the fight ended when Xena shot him clean through with a round from her sniper rifle, finishing him off with a second when he tried to continue fighting nevertheless. After the entire group reunited at Crossroads, and with one final chat with the Sheriff, they once again departed for the MAS hub. Once at the entrance, they found a squad of Steel Rangers fighting some of the robotic security systems. After helping the Rangers and introducing themselves to the squad, specifically to their leader, Star Paladin McRoar, and their scribe, Roll In, they decided to temporarily team up to breach the hub. During the fight, Scrap Heap is separated from the others by a Sentry Bot. During this time, he discovered Twilight's office along with the access code they needed while the others reached the mainframe controlling the security systems and disabled them. He then returns to the others, where he find them in a confrontation with several of the Steel Rangers. One of the Rangers debates with McRoar as to whether or not they should allow the group to leave with anything at all. One of the Rangers supports McRoar's decision, causing the first Knight to execute her on the spot. A gunfight breaks out between Scrap Heap's friends alongside McRoar and Roll In against the three turncoat Steel Rangers. After a short battle, the mutineers are eliminated. Upon returning to the Sky Bandit, they get a message from Princess Insidiis that the hive is under attack by Kronos. Shortly afterwards, the link to the Princess is cut off. The group rush back to the stable, only to find the population kidnapped by the slavers using purple alicorns and their teleportation after subduing the hive. They also find the corpse of Altrix's mother among the rubble, placing the group into their darkest hour. Enraged, they elect to go after the changelings and kill Kronos for good. They spend a day sneaking have into Haven via the metro system, taking out the guarding sentries and sneaking their way past patrols, relying on the fact that the slavers were unaware of their acquisition of the access code. They successfully make it into Site B undetected, fully aware that their odds of leaving alive were slim. They manage to make their initial strides into the facility undetected, killing a few guard patrols before they could raise the alarm, also discovering the base's pre-war security systems to be largely inactive. They find that the changelings are being kept packed in like rats in the facility's large underground warehouse, locked behind a giant security door that they cannot open due to a systems lockdown. They are forced to leave one of their number behind to open the door when they disable the lockdown, and Altrix volunteers for the jobs due to being a fellow changeling. They reluctantly leave her behind, heading to the nearest security station to lift the lockdown. Here, they discover that the lockdown will take time to lift, so Cobalt also needs to remain behind. They likewise discover a changeling StealthBuck (ChangeBuck) and a memory orb left by Chrysalis revealing that she had herself cryogenically frozen to escape the radiation after the bombs fell and she was trapped inside Site B. Cobalt gets the security cameras online, and they see that Kronos and the Goddess have Insidiis restrained in the central vats chamber. They are preparing her for the experiment when the Goddess notices the newly working camera and realises that the group have made it inside the facility. With the base now on alert, Cobalt seals himself inside the security room while the others fight through a wave of slavers to progress. Cobalt continues to guide the others until they reach yet another security station, taking shelter inside. When they do, Cobalt contacts them in an alarmed voice, patching in their station to the feed of Altrix by the warehouse entrance. They could only watch in horror as, even while Altrix managed to get the door to start opening, slavers swarmed her position and eventually cut her down. Altrix was dead. But her sacrifice allowed the changelings to flee, swarming her killers and making short work of them. As the hive caused havok for the slavers, the group pressed on yet again with renewed hatred for the loss of their friend. They would soon encounter an alicorn, the Goddess personally possessing this one for the ensuing fight. After a struggle, and creative use of the ChangeBuck, they succeeded in killing the alicorn by knocking her into a vat of taint. With the Goddess out of the way, the three of them were now able to confront Kronos directly in the central chamber. When they did so, they found that Red Eye himself was waiting to talk to them over the various computer monitors in the room. He attempted to sway Scrap Heap with his vision for Equestria, and upon failing to do so he ordered Kronos to finish them off. In the opening moments of the fight, Scrap Heap freed Insidiis with a well placed shot from Venomous. In turn, Kronos revealed his secret weapon. Queen Chrysalis herself. The Changeling Queen had been heavily experimented on, turning her into a feral animalistic mutant controlled via a chip in her brain. With nothing of her mother left inside the shell, Insidiis was forced to start battling her mother to the death. In the ensuing engagement, Scrap Heap and his friends focusing on Kronos, Scrap Heap would be mortally wounded after being sliced with a wing blade and had a large chunk of flesh physically ripped from him by Kronos. Xena was knocked unconscious, and with Scrap out of commission, Moon Blossom attacked Kronos by herself. She managed to drive her knife into his back, but he stumbled the pegasus before retrieving the same knife and plunging it into Moon Blossom's neck. Killing her. Xena recovered in time to witness her friend's death, firing on the griffon and damaging his cybernetics further. As he rounded on the zebra to finish her off, Scrap Heap found the strength to retrieve Venomous and shoot Kronos in the back. The acidic changeling magic started to dissolve the doomed griffon, before Xena finished him off with a point-blank bullet to the head. With Xena running to her love's side, Insidiis managed to put down her mutated mother and join them. She quickly realised that, with all of their health potions destroyed during the fight, that Scrap Heap would never make it out of Site B alive. With a tearful goodbye to Xena, he had Insidiis take the zebra away before manually triggering the self destruct as he thought back on the events of the story. Site B was destroyed, killing Scrap Heap. In the aftermath, Xena returns to Stable 84 and decides to stay on and its protector and an adnvisor to Queen Insidiis. Cobalt returns to Tenpoyn Tower under changeling escort. The story comes to a close with Watcher letting slip his identity as Spike to Xena, and a radio report from DJ Pon-3 lamenting the Scavenger's death and speaking on the new Age of Heroes, the continuing fights of the Stable Dweller and the Security Mare. Characters Main Cast Scrap Heap - A simple scavenger who has spent his whole life in the wasteland. He takes the job to find Stable 84 simply for the caps. Stripe - A strange zebra on the run from the Zebra Remnant. Cobalt - A pony from Tenpony Tower who claims to have the access code for Stable 84. He is part of the Twilight Society. Altrix - A changeling from Stable 84, assigned to the group by Princess Insidiis. Moon Blossom - A former raider who grew disillusioned with their way of life, who goes on to join Scrap Heap and the group. Supporting Characters Ditzy Doo - A trader in New Appleoosa, gives Scrap Heap the PipBuck that starts his journey. Calamity - A caravan guard from the area around New Appleoosa. His interaction with Scrap Heap changes the latter's life. Stone Mane' '- A roving scavenger who Scrap Heap saves. Daisy Dream' '- Stone Mane's wife. Charm - Stone Mane's daughter. Lucky - Stone Mane's son. DJ Pon-3 - The voice at the end of the radio signal in Tenpony Tower. Grim Star - The Chief of Security for Tenpony Tower. Chrysalis - The mysterious previous owner of Scrap Heap's PipBuck. Insidiis - An unknown person of significance to Queen Chrysalis. Watcher - A disembodied voice who watches the group from afar. Matercula' '- Altrix's mother and a security officer for Stable 84. Spring Haze - The kirin Sheriff of Crossroads. Ruby - The owner of the 'Three Soldiers Inn' in the town of Crossroads. McRoar - The second in command of the Vanhoover Steel Rangers. Roll In - The scribe assigned to McRoar's team. Minor Antagonists Sentry - One of the Prophet's cultists who leads the group to Our Town. Megamart Raider Boss - Moon Blossom's former leader and the leader of the Megamart Raiders. Stable 77 Dweller - The insane singular resident of Stable 77. Main Antagonists The Prophet - A cloaked ghoul and the leader of Our Town. Xaro - Stripe's brother and a member of the Zebra Remnant. Red Eye - The slaver lord doesn't appear in the story in person, but his slavers are a present threat to the group. The Goddess - The consciousness in control of Unity and its alicorns. She is aligned with Red Eye. Kronos - A cyborg griffon who is in charge of Red Eye's slavers in the north of Equestria. He is the main antagonist of War Does Change. Timeline -1 days - Scrap Heap's story starts, he gets a PipBuck from Ditzy Doo. 0 days - Littlepip leaves Stable 2. Scrap Heap is on his way to Manehatten. 3 days - Arrival in Manehatten, Stripe and Cobalt recruited. Littlepip is in New Appleoosa. 4 days - Scrap Heap's group head out of Manehatten. 5 days - Fork in the road, one heading to Starlight's village. They find it as night falls. 6 days - The residents of Our Town attack the group, leading to the village's destruction. 7 days - Scrap Heap wakes up after the Our Town incident. The changelings are revealed. 9 days - The group arrive in Haven, and are attacked by Feral Ghouls. Discovery of the MAS bunker and Red Eye's operations in the area. 12 days - They find the Equestrian Hive and Stable 84. Starlight Glimmer is killed. 13 days - Scrap Heap awakens imprisoned by the changelings, and meets Princess Insidiis. Altrix joins the group. 14 days - They leave for Stable 77 and meet Watcher. 15 days - The group clear the raiders in Prosperity's Megamart, and they meet the former raider pegasus Moon Blossom. 18 days - DJ Pon-3 reports on changeling discovery, the group arrive at Stable 77. Moon Blossom joins the group. Scrap hits max level. 21 days - They meet Kronos. Scrap Heap and Stripe have their first kiss. 23 days - They return to the hive. DJ Pon-3 makes the 'Toaster Repair Pony' comment. Scrap Heap and Stripe finally enter a full relationship. 26 days - They depart for a nearby town where Red Eye's forces are camped out. 27 days - They take out the camp, meeting the Goddess. They kill the alicorn, and later head for Vanhoover. 28 days - They arrive in Vanhoover, the groups stay the night in a small trader town: Crossroads. 29 days - Remnant attack the town, Scrap Heap and Stripe head off to confront them. 30 days - They assault the remnant the next morning, Stripe kills her brother. 31 days - They reach the hub. They get what they need with the help of and some trouble with the local Steel Rangers. 32 days - They return to the Skywagon. Insidiis and the hive go missing. 33 days - The group return to the hive where they learn that Kronos has taken them all. 35 days - They infiltrate the facility beneath the Donut Joe's. Scrap Heap, Moon Blossom, Altrix, Kronos and Queen Chrysalis are killed. Site B is destroyed, the changelings saved. -Scrap Heap dies 37 overall days after he gets the PipBuck.- 40 days - Stripe mourns the loss of their friends and speaks to Watcher. Cobalt returns to Tenpony Tower. DJ Pon-3 reports on what happened. 60 days approx - Goddess dies. 70 days approx - Littlepip activates the Single Pegasus Project. Three months later - Battle of the Hoof, Stripe participates with as many changelings the Queen could spare. Trivia * The fic was originally going to be an alternate universe crossover with the Change series. The author changed his mind, though has kept the plot as intact as possible. * The story seems to share a universe with Project Horizons and Heroes. And through them, it can also be assumed to coexist with Pink Eyes and Murky Number Seven. * It includes an expy of Vault 77 from the Penny Arcade comic. * The Goddess draining fleeting thoughts and emotions from her alicorns is another reference to Project Horizons, as those feelings are all being dumped into Lacunae. * It includes the Outcast squad (albeit as Steel Rangers in this universe) from Operation: Anchorage. They maintain a similar storyline, though the simulation pod is replaced by an assault on the Vanhoover MAS hub. Category:Stories Category:Fallout: Equestria Side Story Category:Completed Stories